Frustrated Bumblebee

This large beautiful insect has been at my window feeder all morning.  I don't usually color my nectar, but I thought I'd try it to see if any strangers showed up, maybe attracted by the color. This very large bumble bee, bombus,  seems so frustrated.  She  keeps flying around the delicious red nectar trying to find a way in.

It is kind of sad, being so close to something so wonderful and it's being only a fraction of an inch away and can't get to it. She is a bit like Tantalus, a Greek mythological figure who killed his children and fed them to the gods, and Zeus, for eternal punishment, made Tantalus stand in water under a fruit tree with wonderful fruit and when he tried to get it, it would move a little out of his grasp.  If he bent down to take a drink, the water would recede.  So we have tantalize, meaning to keep someone from getting something that is close, but never being able to get it, among some other meanings.

I have read that bumble bees are rather aggressive, but I have never found that to be true, but I have never dug out one of their nests, which are made underground.  I don't believe that would be wise.  You can't blame them; they are protecting what is theirs.  I have only seen them busily collecting pollen and unknowingly fertilizing many, many plants.  You can gently touch one and never get stung.  That has been my experience, but I am not recommending it.  What a wonderful insect, along with honey bees.  The world would be a vastly different place without them.